


Nothing But the Truth

by saltyfeathers



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Mark of Cain, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 10:36:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3566585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltyfeathers/pseuds/saltyfeathers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sticking eleven secret herbs and spices up my ass? Sign me up."</p><p>"I suppose you can ingest it," Cas acquiesces, "though it'll take longer to work, and may not work as potently."</p><p>"May not work at all," Dean adds, poking the mixture dubiously. The Mark flares up, like it knows it's being conspired against, and Dean tries not to grimace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing But the Truth

**Author's Note:**

> uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lmao so even though i have like a million other things to be writing, i somehow ended up doing this over the course of a day. amazing.
> 
> i wouldn't work too hard trying to figure out when in the canon this takes place. let's just say sometime post-demon!dean.
> 
> (since this fic does use the sex pollen trope, there is the potential to take this as a little dub-connish. i didn't warn for it because i don't think it's a huge issue in this fic as i did try to give dean and cas an open conversation wrt how they were going to proceed, but i just wanted to give you guys a heads up that your mileage may vary here.)

They’re in one of the bunker’s storage rooms, Dean pacing back and forth in the background while Cas patiently mixes some dry ingredients with a pestle and mortar, face set. Every few seconds, Dean glances furtively at his back, nervous.

“Glaring at me isn’t going to get it done any faster, Dean,” Cas says mildly, not even turning around.

Dean stops pacing.

“I’m not glaring at you,” he says.

“Are you glaring at the ingredients? I assure you they can’t be intimidated into mixing faster.” 

Dean rubs a hand down his face in one long sigh. He steps up beside Cas, peering into the bowl. It just looks like a bunch of spices. He finds himself focusing more on how Cas’ lithe fingers circle around the pestle and the grace with which he grinds everything together. Cas glances up at him.

“I can’t promise this will work, Dean,” he warns.

“Even if it doesn’t, you said there wouldn’t be any side effects, right?”

Cas returns to mixing the ingredients, jaw set.

“No harm will come to you,” he concedes.

“Then what’s the problem?” Dean leans his hip against the counter, arms crossed and watching Cas closely. “You know I’m just as resigned to this as you are.”

Cas’ eyes flash anger, and the muscles in his forearm strain as he starts mixing much more aggressively than he needs to.

“I haven’t given up,” he says in a hard voice, not looking at Dean, “And neither should you.”

“Cas, we’ve tried everything. We’ve exhausted every resource. There’s just no way to get rid of it.”

Cas stops mixing and stares hard at the wall in front of him.  Then, he slams everything onto the table, letting his head drop. Neither of them say anything until Cas roughly shoves the mortar towards Dean.

“It’s done,” he says flatly, the lines of his shoulders tense. “This should hopefully nullify the effects of the Mark for a short period of time.”

Dean watches Cas warily, chewing on his tongue. Things have been… strained, between the two of them lately. Cas obviously has other places to be and other obligations to meet, but he’s been hanging around for days, trying anything he can think of that may get rid of the Mark for good. The more it burns on Dean’s arm, the more determined Cas seems to get, even though Dean has no idea how Cas can know it’s getting worse when he hasn’t even said anything about it.

Cas’ unwavering determination has been grating at Dean. He’s tried to tell Cas to knock it off, because they’re just burning themselves out looking for a cure. Dean had reminded him there were still people out there who needed saving, and Cas snapped back that they weren’t the only ones.

Dean examines the bowl.

"So I just, what, roll it and smoke it?" He jokes weakly.

"You snort it," Cas says, and Dean does, in fact, snort. Cas rolls his eyes. "Unless you'd like it inserted via anus."

"Sticking eleven secret herbs and spices up my ass? Sign me up."

"I suppose you can ingest it," Cas acquiesces, "though it'll take longer to work, and may not work as potently."

"May not work at all," Dean adds, poking the mixture dubiously. The Mark flares up, like it knows it's being conspired against, and Dean tries not to grimace. At Cas's light palm on his forearm, Dean looks up.

"How can you tell?" he asks quietly, "when it's hurting?"

"You're not as good at hiding it as you think," Cas says, letting his hand slip away. The Mark is generally sensitive to touch, especially Cas'. Dean's wondered more than once if it can somehow detect the last dregs of Cas' grace, that being touched by something holy is something to be recoiled from.

Dean shakes his head despondently. "I don't know about this," he says. "It's just a Band-Aid."

"It's better than nothing," Cas says. "If it works, we might be able to tweak the formula to last longer."

"Cas, I can't be on supernatural medication for the rest of my life. It's just not practical."

"Why are you so set against this?" Cas demands, "We've been up against bigger obstacles than this before. We always find a way."

"No," Dean corrects, "our 'ways' have always been one of us dying. That's not a way. That's desperation."

"We're all here," Cas argues. "We made it through."

Dean takes a step back, face stormy.

"Sam got stabbed in the back. I got torn to shreds by hellhounds," he snaps. "You got blown up by an archangel. Sam jumped into the cage. You got pushed out of your own existence by leviathans. I woke up a demon. Plus a million other stab wounds and bullet holes and God knows what else. It's just not worth it anymore, Cas. Every time we fix one thing by dying, we fuck up something else. I can't do it anymore."

Cas makes up for the step Dean took away by coming forward, wrapping his hand around the Mark. This time, Dean can't hide it. He hisses and pulls away, putting pressure on it with his own palm.

"You can't do that," he growls, the Mark pulsing under his touch. "It doesn't like you."

Cas watches him stoically, though Dean's not fooled. Cas has been around the block too many times at this point. He's not near as composed as he seems to be. He nods towards the bowl.

"You should try it," he says. "There's no point arguing until we know if it works or not."

Dean wants to roll his eyes, but refrains. He reaches around Cas to grab the mortar and stares at it, feeling a muted heat bloom at the back of his neck.

"I've done my fair share of illegal substances," he admits, trying to relax the tension between them, "But I've never actually... snorted anything."

Cas looks on, a hint of amusement tugging at his mouth.

"Well don't be embarrassed on my account," he says. "I still sometimes manage to get water up my nose in the shower."

Dean laughs at that, grabbing a pinch of the mixture and sprinkling it on the back of his hand.

"This enough?" he asks.

"I have no idea."

"Okay then. Uh, Bon appetit, or whatever."

Dean hold one nostril closed with his finger, and brings the mixture right up to his face.

"Oh god this is weird," he says, and snorts it all up in one go.

Immediately, he thinks, something is wrong. Cas told him it would most likely burn a little, but this is not just a little. Dean knows what real fire feels like, and this is it.

Thing is, the burn is in his arm. The Mark is screaming, fighting even losing a little bit of power to what Dean's just put in his body. He thinks Cas is saying his name, and maybe those are hands on his shoulders, but he can't be sure. Someone is sawing off his arm, he thinks. This is what it feels like when someone takes a rusty saw to your arm, when barbed wire is being run through your skin, when every blood vessel running under the Mark has been severed. Dean didn't know an arm could hurt this much, but the Mark is a body all its own, and it's fighting back against Dean's unwelcome intrusion.

Dean keels over, staggers backwards. His momentum is only stopped by the shelf he runs into, jostled boxes raining down around him, their contents spilling and breaking all over the floor. Cas is by his side, trying to pull him down, to anchor him, but Dean catches him off guard, shoving him hard enough that he stumbles. The Mark lashes out, burning him where Cas was just touching his bare skin.

When Cas starts forward again, Dean holds out a desperate hand.

"Please," he rasps, "don't come any closer."

Cas stops on the spot, face pale.

On his own, Dean slides to the floor, ignoring Cas' quiet warning about all the broken glass and who knows what that he's currently sitting in. Dean waves him off, cradling his arm against chest.

"I don't think it worked," he says flatly, trying to compartmentalizing the pain in his arm.

"... No," Cas says, cautiously moving a little closer, "it would appear not. Though maybe it could. If the Mark reacted that strongly..."

Dean gasps as another wave of pain rolls through his arm, and reaches out, looking for anything to brace himself against. He blindly slaps his hand to the floor, only to feel another stab of pain flash through his palm.

"Dean!" Cas comes forward another hesitant step, obviously caught between not wanting to irritate the Mark anymore and help Dean.

Dean sighs and looks at his hand, now covered in blood. Of course he had slammed it down on one of the shards of glass Cas had just warned him about. Whatever was in the jar is now on his hand, some kind of iridescent dust.

"It distracts from the Mark a little, at least," he grumbles, struggling to pull himself to his feet, practically climbing the shelf to keep him standing.

"Do you know what this dust stuff is?" he asks Cas, waving his hand at him.

From a respectable distance, Cas takes a look at it, but shrugs.

"Do you know which bottle it came from? Or what box?"

Dean steps over the mess in front of him, stumbles a bit, and waves Cas off again. He keeps his eyes closed because he's afraid even looking at Cas right now is gonna piss the Mark off even more.

"No idea," Dean says. "Hopefully it's harmless. If it's not, the Mark will probably burn it out of me anyway."

He can feel Cas' eyes on his back as he shuffles out of the room.

“This was fun,” he says over his shoulder. “I’m going to try running headfirst into a wall now and hopefully knock myself out for a while.”

Cas doesn’t follow him or even say anything. Dean feels like a sad fucking sack as he drags himself to his room, leaving a trail of blood drops from his hand and collapsing onto his bed- on the side without the Mark- with a groan. He tries to ignore how it feels like his arm is on fire and watches the blood sluggishly pulsing out of his palm. He won’t need stitches or anything, but he probably should wrap it up in something.  Without moving his head, he casts his eyes for anything within reach that he could use, and when he spots a discarded sock on the floor he plucks it up with a sigh, winding it around his hand.

So this thing was a huge bust. Not that Dean’s surprised or anything. He grinds his face into a pillow and sighs hard. Despite the shitty circumstances, he likes when Cas sticks around. Not that anyone would know it from looking at him, since he spends more time stomping around and grumbling lately than anything else. Sam at least has been smart enough to stay out of the way while doing research, but Cas has been stubbornly insistent on discussing possible cures and remedies with Dean at every available opportunity. Even when they’re not on a research binge, Cas just kinda _hangs around_ , which is weird enough that Dean feels strange just thinking about it. He likes the company, though. Of course he does.

He likes Cas.

Which, y’know. Whatever. It’s been a long time since he’s pretended otherwise. Eventually he just got to a point where lying to himself was more trouble than it was worth, he admitted he had feelings for Cas (again, to himself), and moved the fuck on. No one said anything about it, no one acted like anything was different, because it wasn’t. Dean was the same as ever around Cas and vice versa. The only big difference was that once Dean finally gave in and let himself feel the actual feelings he has for Cas, it got suckier the longer Cas stayed away. At least before, Dean could assure himself his twitchiness and bad moods were just a symptom of boredom and cabin fever.

So, that’s the score. Cas is annoying the fuck out of him more often than not with all the Mark of Cain talk, but Dean would much rather be annoyed by Cas _here_ than sad because Cas _isn’t_ here. There’s definitely a reason he’s been indulging all of Cas’ ridiculous attempts to cure him, and it’s not because he thinks any of them will work. He wonders if, to a certain extent at least, Cas knows he’s doomed. Maybe that’s why he’s been extra gung ho lately about extended research sessions. (Though their more recent sessions have devolved into Dean eating stuff and trying to persuade Cas to eat it too, without opening a single tome.)

Dean doesn’t want to think about this. He doesn’t want to think about the Mark’s burn. He doesn’t want to think about the complications that could arise from the Mark, or about the time he spent as a demon. He doesn’t want to think about how he asked Cas to kill him if he ever got out of control again. He doesn’t want to think about dying, because he’s pretty sure that’s what’s gonna end up happening here no matter what.

So instead, he thinks about kissing Cas. About running his fingers through Cas’ hair and finding the sensitive spots on Cas’ neck that make him moan. He thinks about all the times he could have kissed Cas, _should have_ kissed Cas. Going all the way back to—well, Dean’s not exactly sure. Going back a while, though. He’s wanted to kiss Cas for a while.

He wants to do other things to Cas. He wants Cas to do things to him. And it’s weird, because usually “things” means wild positions or funky toys or incredibly filthy dirty talk, but in this case, he finds it generally means that he wants to hold Cas’ hand or sleep next to him or choose fucking curtains together. Dean’s sure all the red hot fantasies are still there- God knows he’s had more than a couple vivid dreams that end pretty damn happy- but this other stuff is so vanilla it’s almost embarrassing. Dean would almost feel better if all he wanted _was_ for Cas to fuck him senseless. But then he figures, that’s probably the point. This is what being in love is like. By day, buying oatmeal and dishwasher detergent at the grocery store. By night, either kinky sex fantasy come to life or falling asleep on each other in front of a tv playing reruns of Jeopardy.

It’s all so weird. It’s weird, weird, weird. It’s another life Dean wants that he can’t have. There was before his mom died in the nursery, and then there was him, Sam, and dad, fighting the good fight. Then it was Lisa’s white picket fence, then the bunker’s attempts at domesticity, and after all that time Dean feels like he’s finally landed. Finally planted his feet and said, _this is it for me_.

Not that he’s going to get it. He never assumed that. But there’s even a certain level of comfort in knowing that he knows where he stands. At least he knows what he wants. He’s tempered all expectations pretty severely, so when Cas shows up asking to stay a few days or calls them for help on a hunt, Dean counts himself lucky.

Dean stays in bed for some time, trying to fall asleep. The burn in his arm dulls considerably, but Dean can still feel it simmering away. The sock in his hand is red now, but he thinks it’s finally stopped bleeding. 

Another kind of burn has started up in his gut, and he’s not especially surprised, since he spent the majority of the last hour thinking about the guy he’s in love with. The Mark generally leaves him alone when he jacks off, thank god, because the last thing he needs is interference from that department as well. Since his right hand is currently out of commission, he palms his dick through the front of his sweats, letting his pillow muffle his moan, though that’s more out of routine than anything since the touch didn’t seem to do much. Raising an eyebrow, Dean works his hand under the waistband of his pants, giving a couple experimental pulls of his dick, all to no avail. He’s definitely warmer than usual, his cheeks flushed, turned on for sure. His cock is half hard, though not from any ministrations of his own. When he wraps his fingers around his dick again, nothing happens, and Dean stares down at it in consternation.

Determined, Dean flips onto his back, pulling his pants halfway down his thighs. He fondles his balls in one hand, his cut hand completely useless off the side. It feels good, Dean supposes, but his body is demanding more and he can’t seem to figure out how to give it what he wants. It’s like his cock has a mind of its own, now rock hard and leaking at the tip. Dean feels heat flush up and down his neck, his toes starting to tingle, darting his tongue between his lips to wet them. He tries, one last futile time, to get himself off. He even inserts a finger into himself, and though he can feel it (and is usually totally into it), it does nothing for him.

Frustration starts to creep in at the edges, since it seems that whatever was getting Dean riled up has reached an aching plateau. He turns back onto his stomach and starts rutting shamelessly against his sheets, but all he feels is the platonic rubbing of fabric. He tries for a couple more thrusts, but he’s only making a mess. He feels too big for his skin, like he’s going to vibrate right out of his body soon if he can’t find some sort of release for the built up tension. He hasn’t even been fully hard for that long, but he’s somehow almost at the threshold for what he can take, pure, unbridled want zinging through him at every subatomic level.

Dean rolls out of bed, yanks up his sweatpants, and starts pacing again, because something incredibly funky is going on. He thinks about what he’s eaten today, where he’s been and what he’s done. Has he pissed any witches off in the last couple weeks? A strong wave of arousal hits him and his knees almost buckle, so he thrusts out a hand to catch himself on the wall without thinking about it. As he rides it out, he glances at his bandaged hand, which he only now realizes has gone back to throbbing since he just threw it against a wall. Then he thinks about the iridescent powder from the storage room.

“Oh, shit,” he says.

Like some sort of cosmic joke, a knock on his door comes at that exact moment and Dean practically flies across the room to his bed, immediately rucking up the sheets around his pelvis to hide his erection.

“Dean?” Cas calls, and Dean thinks _oh shit_ again.

“Yeah?” he manages to croak out.

“Can I come in?”

“Uhhh…” Dean swallows hard. “Kinda busy in here.”

Silence for a moment, and then, a little quieter, “I know about the powder.”  

Oh, shit.

“Fine,” Dean concedes in defeat, “Get in here and close the door.”

Cas complies, closing the door behind him, hovering awkwardly in the entranceway until Dean rolls his eyes and gestures to his desk chair. He tries to ignore how his dick throbs at the mere sight of Cas.

“There’s no one else in the bunker,” Cas says. “Sam went to meet Charlie about those fraudulent insurance papers, remember?”

Dean puts his head in his hands.

“Yeah, well, I don’t care. It feels more private with the damn door closed.” He’s not even looking at Cas, he’s speaking straight to his lap.

“Okay,” Cas says.

“So what is it, then? The powder?”

“Well, first I’d like to apologize for taking so long to come check on you. I wanted to give the cure time to wear off, and one of the solutions that spilled from the shelf was starting to eat through the concrete so I had to act immediately.”

At that, Dean jerks his head up.

“But you’re okay?” he checks.

“I procured the popular safety equipment and took care of it.”

Dean breathes out a heavy sigh of relief and subtly tries to shift his position, but his dick has no interest in backing off, especially now that Cas is hanging around.

“So about the powder?” he asks, trying not to sound too wrecked. He’s never thought about how difficult it would be to keep a normal conversation going while maintaining a full erection, but this is certainly turning out to be a good lesson. He can’t help himself from sneaking a peek at Cas, finds himself entranced by Cas’ mouth, his hair, his arms. Today he’s only wearing an old grey t-shirt of Dean’s and a pair of thrifted jeans, and Dean has to close his eyes for a moment to steady his breathing.

“I managed to find which box the powder came from, and looked it up in the corresponding ledger.”

Dean swallows heavily, nodding along and hoping Cas doesn’t notice that he’s literally holding his dick flat to his stomach to try and keep it from tenting the sheets.

“Dean, it’s an aphrodisiac.”

“Yup,” Dean says shortly. Cas’ low voice is really, really fucking with his senses eight now. “I figured that.”

“It’s- you need to-” Cas clears his throat, obviously uncomfortable, which Dean would probably question if he weren’t otherwise occupied. Cas is rarely uncomfortable, especially when talking about sex. He’s generally frank to the point of embarrassing _Dean_ , which is saying something.

Dean gestures for Cas to keep going.

“Sooner would be better than later, Cas.”

“Well, the aphrodisiac is more of a side effect than anything,” he hedges. “The true purpose of this powder was to use it as a truth telling serum.  As far as I can tell, they were still trying to perfect it before Abaddon killed them all in 1958. I think they were trying to change the sexual desire component of the aphrodisiac into a desire to tell the truth.”

“So, what, I’m also gonna be telling the truth for the duration of this thing?”

“Try and tell a lie,” Cas suggests.

“I’m… I’m… Super horny right now.” Dean purses his lips. “Shit.”

Cas allows a tiny smile to cross his face, but it’s quickly gone.

“This is my fault,” he says. “I pushed you into trying the cure and it led to this.”

“It’s okay,” Dean says, trying to choose his words carefully. “I like having you around.”

That uncomfortable look is back on Cas’ face, and something hits Dean.

“Did you get hit by the powder too?” he asks. “Is that why you’re acting so weird?”

“No.”

“Okay, then what’s going on? This is something I could actually use a cure for, Cas.”

Cas shifts awkwardly in the chair, looking like he’s trying to decide how to word whatever bad news he’s inevitably about to deliver.

“The cure is simple,” he says, and Dean thinks, okay, maybe it’s not so bad. Then he continues, “Reaching climax with someone else.”

Dean nods.

“Okay… Not impossible.”

Cas’ expression of discomfort only deepens.

“It is possible,” he allows, “But it could take time that we might not necessarily have.”

Dean’s eyebrows raise.

“What are you talking about.”

“The Men of Letters would test their concoctions on small animals like rats, and if they could get their hands on them, demons. The powder was supposed to only last a specified amount of time and then wear off, but the last test they have recorded is on a demon and the results were rather… explosive.”

Dean puts his head in his hands again. He’s still functioning on that uncomfortably high level of awareness that comes along with intense arousal, and tries to breathe.

“How long do I have?” he asks.

“From injection to death, the demon had about two and a half hours.”

Dean quickly does the math.

“So, I have probably less than an hour to fuck it out with someone, and whoever I do it with is gonna get honest answers to literally every question they ask.”

“That seems to be the situation, yes.”

“That’s fucking convoluted.”

“It was an unfortunate series of events.” Cas stands up, seemingly unsure. “I can go look up an escort service if-”

Dean shakes his head and Cas immediately stops speaking.

“Godammit,” he mutters. “Godammit this isn’t how I wanted this to go.”

“How you wanted what to go?” Cas asks slowly.

“Well, shit, Cas, you know we’re not gonna find anyone in time. And even if we could I’d be fucked because I’d tell them anything they asked.”

“That’s likely,” Cas agrees hesitantly.

Dean gestures to the spot beside him on the bed, and tries to think straight through the pounding of blood in his ears and his fucking sore and leaking dick that somehow manages to perk up even further at the mention of the physical closeness between the two. Cas sits, eyeing him warily.

“Okay, to be honest,” Dean says- well, duh- “I didn’t ever think this would come up. I didn’t think there was a chance in hell that it would ever come to this.”

“Come to what, Dean?” Cas asks, a hint of frustration coloring his voice but, Dean thinks, he must know. He must.

“I’m just gonna- I’m just gonna lay it all out, I guess,” Dean says, like he has a choice in the matter. “I don’t want my dick to explode. Like, fine, if I’m gonna die I’m gonna die but I really don’t wanna die because my dick rockets off. That’s just- that’s too much, even for me.”

Cas doesn’t even crack a smile, just keeps staring at him.

“If this whole thing-” Dean gestures around them, should probably point to his lap, but, no- “hadn’t happened, this would probably- I would never have asked- or even said-” he looks at Cas pleadingly. “I thought this was supposed to make me tell the truth. I sound like an idiot.”

“You’re telling the truth, Dean. The ledger said nothing about eloquence.”

Dean groans, rubbing his forehead.

“I’m asking for your help, Cas,” Dean says, trying to be as straightforward as possible. Immediately, he feels his stomach try to cave in on itself and his head fills with a loud whining noise like someone shot a gun off right next to his ear. “I mean,” he adds hurriedly, blood pumping, “if you don’t want to I’ll, I dunno. Fuck a pie or something. Stranger things have solved stranger problems before. I don’t want you to feel like you have to- to do anything.”

Cas is still staring at him, but uncertainty has worked its way into his expression, his mouth turned down at the corners and eyes unhappy.

Dean thinks hysterically, _Cas is gonna turn me down for prom,_ and tries not to vomit. Maybe he _would_ rather die than face this, exploding dick of death or not.

“Dean,” Cas says, voice pained. His mouth thins into a line for a moment, before he relents.

“The situation is obviously dire, but because of… extenuating circumstances… I genuinely feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

“If that’s your only reservation, I can promise you’re not.”

Dean watches a muscle twitch in Cas’ jaw, and he doesn’t know if what he says next is because of the powder or just because he should finally fucking say it. Maybe a bit of both.

“I love you,” he says, and then literally claps a hand over his mouth. Cas stares at him, and Dean slowly removes it.

“I don’t want you to think I’m trying to manipulate you into doing this,” Dean says. “I just… trust me. If you’ll have me, I’m yours.” 

Cas watches him for so long that Dean thinks he may just be trying to run out the clock.

Then, very hesitantly, Cas puts a hand on Dean’s knee, and his entire body sings. He closes his eyes, not because he doesn’t want to look at Cas, but because he wants to catalogue the sensation, file it away for whenever he may need it in the future.

When he opens his eyes, Cas is staring at him, and they’re pulling inexorably together, magnets of an opposite polarity.

When Cas’ lips touch his, Dean screams.

Not some weird sex scream, but a scream that only comes with absolutely excruciating pain. Dean’s arm is literally on fire, he swears someone just dropped a match on it, because there is nothing else that could hurt this much. He was in hell, he knows what the flames feel like, he _remembers_ , and when he has nightmares-

“Dean, Dean!”

But Dean shoves Cas off again, luckily catching him in the center of the chest so that he doesn’t brush any bare skin again. He scrambles to the other side of the bed, watches with dark eyes as Cas picks himself up, hands up, a surrender.

“It’s okay,” Cas soothes, as Dean furiously covers the Mark on his arm, putting as much pressure on it as possible, hoping the fire in his veins will die down.

He doesn’t know how to describe this feeling, because somehow the pain and the arousal are mixing into some sort of cocktail at the base of Dean’s brain, making him fuzzy and confused and not sure which is which anymore.

“I’m so sorry, Dean,” he hears Cas say. “I thought for sure the mix would be out of your system by now. I didn’t think the Mark would still be so affected.”

Dean takes a few more deep breaths before getting his brain into some semblance of a working order.

“Shit,” he mumbles, covering his face. “Shit, shit, _shit_.”

“I’m sorry,” Cas says again, slowly sitting back down on the bed. “I should have known.”

Dean shakes his head.

“It’s not your job to know everything,” he mumbles, and he hates how weak his voice sounds, but he’s pretty sure people aren’t supposed to be this aroused for this long, or have the adrenaline pumping for this long. It can’t be good.

“We’re on a time limit,” Dean continues, “We can’t afford to wait for the cure to drain away.”

“The Mark doesn’t seem to react if we touch each other with a layer of clothing between us,” Cas says, again putting a hand on Dean’s leg. Dean flinches, but when the pain doesn’t come, he relaxes under Cas’ hand.

“Over the clothes stuff, huh?” Dean tries to joke. “I feel like I’m behind the bleachers at school.”

Cas leans forward to press a kiss to Dean’s shoulder, and Dean shudders. He can barely feel it, but the warmth does leak through his plaid and the t shirt underneath.

“You should do that up,” Cas says quietly, plucking at the buttons on Dean’s shirt. “Just in case.” Dean quickly fumbles with the buttons as Cas fishes around the room for another layer for himself. He finds a Henley that he tosses on, effectively covering up his arms.

“Should I go get some gloves?” Dean says shakily, trying to sound flippant but obviously failing spectacularly.

Cas ignores him, running his palms down the length of Dean’s torso, across the curve of his ass and then down the underside of his thighs. Dean gasps and bucks forward, shifting so that he’s straddling Cas’ lap, hands firm on his shoulders. Cas continues to rub his hands up and down Dean’s thighs, and though the contact is muted through a layer of fabric, Dean finds himself reveling in it, his pulse picking up even faster than it had already been going, curling his hands in the fabric of Cas’- Technically, it’s Dean’s- Henley.

“The feeling is mutual you know,” Cas says, kissing Dean’s chest, “I love you, Dean.”

Dean may make an embarrassing sound as he continues to rut against Cas. He can feel Cas’ erection through both pairs of jeans and sweatpants, and tries to get the best angle he can without getting too close.

“I want to kiss you,” he says breathlessly, and Cas’ eyes are deep and dark and blue, gaze fixated, even awed, “I’ve wanted to kiss you for so damn long.”

Cas huffs when Dean manages to briefly get the angle just right between them, and moves his hands to cup Dean’s ass, moving him just a little further into Cas’ lap. There’s a wet spot where the tip of Dean’s dick has been rubbing against the fabric and again through force of habit, he reaches down to stroke himself. Cas is watching him with wide eyes, looking absolutely debauched even though Dean hasn’t  and can’t card his fingers through his hair like he very much wants to. Just like he can’t kiss that mouth, at least for the time being.

Cas reaches down and squeezes Dean’s hand through the pants, telling him to back off for a second. Dean does, and then thank god his pants material is so flexible because it allows Cas to start tracing the shape of his dick with his fingers, lightly at first, and it drives Dean absolutely wild. Before Dean can properly think about, going completely on instinct, he leans forward to press a sloppy, hot kiss to Cas’ neck, and pays absolute hell for it.

His arm flares up again, and Dean thinks he actually blacks out for a second from the pain. He blinks rapidly, coming to, ready to claw his fucking arm off, but then there are gentle hands on his chest, a soft, slight pressure that holds him down.

Cas is sitting over him now, looking down at him with worried eyes.

“Dean,” he says quietly, fisting a bit of Dean’s shirt in his hand like the tighter he holds on, the faster Dean will recover. “I don’t meant to hurry you, but we’ve just passed the half hour mark.”

“It’s good, I’m fi-” Dean starts to sit up, ready to resume where they left off, but Cas pushes him back down again.

“Let me?” he asks, and a flood of heat immediately pools in Dean’s abdomen, mingling with the lingering pain from the Mark, riding an incredibly fine line. He nods.

Dean watches Cas lean over his midsection, tries not to groan as Cas drags his hands down Dean’s sides again and completely fails.     

Cas presses his lips to the waistband of Dean’s sweats, right over his hipbone.

“I’m never going to give up on you, Dean,” he murmurs, “Even when you insist on giving up on yourself.”

 Dean closes his eyes tight because the itch there is completely unfair. It’s completely honest when Dean feels that tear slide down his cheek, and he blames the powder.

“I don’t want you to leave,” Dean croaks, “I don’t want to be alone when the Mark takes me again.”

Cas pauses in his ministrations, looking up at Dean with pain clear in his eyes.

“I’ll stay,” he promises simply, his voice cracking just a bit. He doesn’t comment on the second half of what Dean said.

“I mean,” Dean continues, and if he wasn’t damning this truth telling serum before, he certainly is now, “Yeah, I want you to take me out if that happens. But before then,” he swallows hard, and his voice comes out small, “I’m fucking scared, Cas. And I don’t wanna go it alone.”

Cas doesn’t look at Dean this time, but he slides his hands down to encircle Dean’s hips, very carefully making sure there’s fabric between his hands and Dean’s skin at all times. His grip tightens, and he starts to nudge at the shape of Dean’s dick through his sweatpants with his jaw. Dean can’t tangle a hand in Cas’ hair like he wants to, so he settles for resting both hands above his head where they can’t get him into any more trouble.

At the first touch of Cas’ tongue to the fabric around his cock, Dean almost knocks himself off the bed at the curl of pleasure that whips through him, arcing his back and trying to lift his hips, but Cas gently holds them down.

“Cas,” Dean moans, licking his lips because he wants to feel _something_ there, some kind of pressure that he hopes and prays will be Cas’ lips eventually, once this fucking cure wears off. He feels an answer in the squeeze Cas gives his hips, and when Cas (at least attempts) to wrap his lips around Dean’s cock he swears he sees stars.

“Fuck, Cas,” he whines, clutching the sheets above him, trying to arch, to thrust, to do anything that will add more friction. Cas can only get his mouth so far because of how the fabric stretches, but when Dean feels that hot suction around even just the tip of his cock, he groans so loud that he’s legitimately glad he asked Cas to close the door, even if there’s no one else in the bunker. Some things should stay in this room.

When Cas adds his tongue to the ensemble, massaging the slit of Dean’s cock with it, his eyes roll back in his head and he cries out full on gibberish. When Cas moans in return, the vibrations go straight through Dean, and he’s so close, he’s _so_ fucking close the corners of his vision have started to shimmer.

And then he pulls off, only for his mouth to be almost immediately replaced by a warm hand. Before Dean can even say anything, Cas’ face is directly in front of his only a few inches away. This close, Dean could count every single one of Cas’ eyelashes if he wanted to.

“The feeling is mutual,” Cas repeats from earlier, not breaking eye contact. He’s so serious and so fucking genuine that Dean’s eyes get dangerously itchy again. “I’ve waited a long time to kiss you, as well. Since that is impossible at the moment, I will continue to wait. I’ve dreamt about your mouth, you know,” he says, still kneading Dean’s dick in his palm with short, quick strokes. Dean’s breath hitches. “About the words that come out of it, about the places I’d like you to put it on me.” He leans an infinitesimal amount closer, his voice falling to almost a whisper.

“I’d like you to come for me, Dean,” he murmurs, still somehow holding eye contact. “Just like this.”

And Dean does, his orgasm rushing through him like the tide, filling him up and then emptying him out, leaving him boneless, exhausted, and safe in Cas’ steady grip.

Cas is still hovering above him, having watched him through the whole thing.

“How do you feel?” he asks, hushed.

Dean blinks lethargically at him. Wrung out.

“Tired.”

He looks down and presses a hand to where Cas’ erection is tenting his jeans.

“You want me to-” he starts, but Cas gently catches his sleeve and pulls him away.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cas says. “You should sleep.”

Dean smiles, kinda goofy.

“Shitty circumstances,” he mumbles, carefully straightening out Cas’ Henley, “But I dunno if I’d have ever gotten up the stones to say anything, otherwise.”

Cas watches him sadly, a small smile on his face.

“Maybe,” he says, “Maybe not.”

“When the Mark settles down, I’m going to kiss you,” Dean says. “Cas, I’ve wanted to kiss you for so long.

“You don’t have to tell the truth anymore,” Cas reminds him wryly. “The powder worked itself out of your system with the orgasm.”

“I’m sure I’ll get back to lying about my feelings eventually,” Dean says lightly. Then, “But not tonight.”

Cas stares at him for a moment before he climbs off the bed.

“You really should sleep,” he says. “And it may not be the best idea to fall asleep next to each other.”

“That’s actually a great idea.”

“Well,” Cas smiles softly, “It is. Just not tonight. Let the Mark run its course.”

Dean closes his eyes, but he hears Cas sit back down in the chair. It reminds him a lot of the early days of their relationship, but his reaction to it has changed pretty radically over time. He falls asleep not thinking of the Mark still burned into his skin, but of the warmth of Cas’ hands.

He thinks about how, if you really get down to it, Cas was his cure the whole time.  


End file.
